I Call Bullshit on Mississippi Proposition 26

The raving right wingers are at it again. Over in Mississippi, they are trying to pass Proposition 26. Proposition 26, otherwise known as the Personhood Amendment, would grant the status of human life to embryos.

This would mean almost all abortions would be illegal. If you had an abortion, you would be a murderer.

This means if you undergo fertility treatments and discard extra embryos in Mississippi, you would be a murderer.

In the ALI community, we all know people  who have undergone IVF after IVF and, despite numerous transfers, not a single embryo has stuck.

Fertilized embryo equals the POTENTIAL for human life. It is NOT the same thing as a living breathing human being.

Please y'all, spread the word on this fucknuttery. If you live in Mississippi, fight to have this voted down. The vote isn't until Nov. 8th. There is still time to stop this bullshit from becoming law.


* A HUGE thanks and shout out to Monica Mingo for making me aware of this insanity.

**PS...I don't want to turn this into a huge debate about when life begins. I just truly believe this is an individual decision that we all must wrestle with and the government has NO RIGHT to tell us how to handle it.

What The Fuck Wednesday: Shatner Sings?

Welcome back to What The Fuck Wednesday, the prime location to read about products, items, and events that make your head snap around and your mouth utter the phrase "What the fuck is that?"

Last Friday night, I was on my way to the high school to pick Marty up from the football game and I was listening to the radio. I heard about something I just KNEW I had to check out and, OH MY GAWD, I couldn't stop laughing except when I stopped to say What The Fuck? May I present this weeks What The Fuck Wednesday item...

William Shatner *Singing Bohemian Rhapsody

I was laughing so hard that tears were running down my face. I think this is a brilliant piece of fucknuttery...pure GOLD humor! My What The Fuck reaction was made even worse when I stumbled across this Billboard piece that announced that "William Shatner boldly goes where he never has before ... to ... No. ...  1 ... on ... a ... Billboard ... albums ... chart!" And, then inspiration struck. We're going to help Mr. Shatner pick the songs for his next album. I think we should start a twitter campaign. We are going to campaign for Shatner to cover the songs we pick. Our hashtag will be #songsShatnershouldsing I've decided it would be pure comedic gold to have Shatner cover Sir Mix-A-Lot's Baby Got Back. So, join me in the campaign and tweet about this.

If you've found a what the fuck Wednesday worthy moment, throw up a post and put the link in the comments. I'll add the links to the post through Sunday evening. If you don't want to post, share your What The Fuck moment here.

1. Wistfulgirl's World: What The F**k Wednesday

I need your help, PLEASE!

Hey y'all, I need some help and input from all of you. I am trying to pick out what post to submit to Mel's Creme de la Creme and I am stuck. I have narrowed it down to 3 posts but, I'm open to suggestions if you think another post is better. Here are the three posts I've narrowed it down to...

1) The Power of Our Love - I feel this captures the spirit of our community in a fabulous fashion.

2) Things I Believe In - This post captures a lot of who I am.

3) V is for Victor - This post is sweet and special and very dear to my heart but I'm not sure it's my best.

Which post would you pick?

The Bionic Grandma Update

Thanks to everyone who offered up their thoughts and prayers for my mom yesterday. My mom's surgery went smoothly although it took a full hour longer than it was suppose to...the damage was that bad. My mom's surgeon said she had sheared the ball off the bone. The ball had perforated her bicep and was resting right up against the axial nerve which explains the extreme amount of pain she was in. Her surgeon couldn't believe with that amount of damage and pain that my mom had stopped taking the vicodin they gave her and had only been taking ibuprofen for the pain. He also said that he doesn't think there is any nerve damage and he thinks she will regain most of the function. I personally think she is strong enough and stubborn enough to regain full use (just to prove him wrong). My mom has a prescription for 6 weeks in a sling to give her bionic shoulder time to fully integrate with her body and then she will need heavy duty physical therapy (18 months) to regain strength and range of motion.Thanks again for the thoughts and prayers. I'd appreciate continued prayers for her recover

Home of the Bionic Grandma

You know that old saying that age is just a state of mind. Well, my mom found out last Friday that her mind and her body have a serious disagreement about her age.

My mom is the principal of a small private school for kids with Asperger's. Last Friday, one of her teachers brought in a balance board (the kind that is sometimes used for physical therapy) and the kids were playing on it during PE. Well, my mom being my mom, she had to jump up on it too. When she first got on the balance board, she was facing to the right and was balancing like a pro. The teacher who brought it in commented on how impressed she was, dais she hadn't managed to stay on a single time. Well, my mom shifted to face left and lost her balance. She went shoulder first into the hard packed soil they were over. My mom ended up with a bunch of spider web fractures radiating out from the joint.

My mom is scheduled for surgery this Friday. Her doctor says their is a slim chance he can reconstruct the shoulder but, until he opens her shoulder, he can't properly evaluate if their is sufficient blood flow to support the bone healing. The strong likelihood is that my mom is going to have a new shoulder put it. If that happens, my mom will hereafter be known as The Bionic Grandma.

Can y'all say a prayer for my mom or keep her in your thoughts or whatever? Either way the surgery goes, she's in for a long recovery.

What The Fuck Wednesday: Feminine Products Edition

Welcome back to What The Fuck Wednesday, the prime location to read about products and items that make your head snap around and your mouth utter the phrase "What the fuck is that?"

Earlier this week, I was at Tae Kwon Do with Joey. Sadly, I had forgotten my book and was reduced to reading US Weekly. I got all the way through the magazine and, except for the normal heinous celebrity outfits they highlighted, I hadn't seen anything that remarkable. Then, I saw the last page. It contained a full page spread for U by Kotex...

because, obviously every woman cares what color applicator she shoves up her hoohah. I had to see if this was the worst of it, so I typed the url into the browser and, sadly (or, for the sake of WTF Wednesday, gladly), the fucknuttery went much farther than just colored applicators. There's the Tween Line which says "Period preparation gets colorful patterns and tween attitude in the U by Kotex Tween* combo pack."

The adult pad lines come in FreeStyle, Boho, and Poptimistic designs.

And, not only are the tampon applicators colored but there are colorful wrappers...

 

The PunkGlam line

 

The Color Prints line

Somehow, I am deeply disturbed by the need to decorate feminine hygiene products.


If you've found a what the fuck Wednesday worthy moment, throw up a post and put the link in the comments. I'll add the links to the post through Sunday evening. If you don't want to post, share your What The Fuck moment here.

Tasty Tuesday: Personal Pizzas

Hey y'all. From past posts here, I'm sure y'all have figured out that my kids love pizza. Well, the other night, I had everything to make pizza but I didn't feel like making dough. I needed to get the food in the oven quickly and making dough would have eaten up too much time. So, I started thinking and I remembered I had a whole pack of tortillas. Now, a tortilla would make a nice thin crust but, if you heated them normally, the tortilla would be too floppy to support the pizza. But, there is an easy fix. You simply lightly brown the tortilla in a frying pan.

*Personal Pizzas
1 to 2 tortillas per person
a few tablespoons of oil
pizza toppings of choice (I used sausage & sauteed onions and mushrooms)
a batch of super easy and delicious pizza sauce
shredded mozzarella

1. Heat oil in frying pan over medium high heat. One at a time, put a tortilla in the pan and heat until it begins to crisp. Make sure you heat both sides. If the tortilla starts to develop bubbles, puncture them with a knife.
2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. 
3. Place crisped tortillas directly onto cooking sheet.
4. Add toppings, be sure not to pile too high or even the crispy tortilla won't hold up to it.
5. Bake for about 10 minutes or until cheese is melted and starting to brown.

These were a huge hit with the kids because they each got their own pizza. I hope you enjoy this twist on  homemade pizza

*Sorry, I forgot to take pictures.

And Then They Came For Me

Last Thursday, I had a date with my oldest son. Marty asked me to go with him to see a drama production at Cary High School. They were putting on a production of And Then They Came for Me: Remembering the World of Anne Frank. Honestly, going in, I was a bit skeptical as to how good of a job a bunch of high school students could do with this weighty a subject. I was floored by the production. I honestly don't know if a professional troop could have done a better job. The scene and the mood was set from the moment we stepped through the doors. There was a string quartet (I think) playing the most haunting music in the lobby and there were posters featuring articles and stories about the Holocaust for you to look at before the play started. From the moment the lights dimmed until the last actor exited the stage, not a word was uttered by the audience. The audience seemed to be holding it's collective breath in stunned silence due to the power of the story. These young people truly immersed themselves in the rolls they were asked to play and you could believe every emotion they conveyed. In fact, the young man playing one of the SS guards had a quote in the playbill that made me want to cry for him. I'm paraphrasing because I don't have the playbill in front of me but he said that when they were blocking the play, he came up with some of the stage direction for his character. He, with the blessing of the director, added certain stage directions because he felt it would portray the character more effectively and that he was deeply ashamed of the things he had done in the name of the character. It felt (to me) like he was afraid to say he was just doing it for the roll because it echoed too closely to the Nazis refrain of "I was just following orders." I wish I could tell this young man that he did nothing to be ashamed of because, without his powerful portrayal, the play would have been seriously lacking something in its message. I'd also like to say that while I think all the actors and actresses did a truly amazing job, I have to applaud the courage of the young man and young women who stepped into the rolls of the Nazis. It couldn't have been easy to agree to portray such an epitome of evil but, a story this powerful needs to have the evil that dominated that time shown because, without it, the story won't carry the same weight.

If you ever get a chance, please, please go see this show. And Then They Came for Me: Remembering the World of Anne Frank reminds you of the very human face that should be remembered when talking about the Holocaust. It reminds you that this was something that really happened not just something in the history books. And, in reminding you of that, it breaks your heart more than just a little. But, the heartbreak is good because when we remember history, especially tragic, devastating history, we are less likely to repeat it.

A Breath of Fresh Air

After the emotion and remembrance of National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day, I feel the need for something a little lighter and more uplifting today. Rys showed me this fabulous video yesterday. The video features the residents of the Clark Retirement Community in Grand Rapids Michigan lib dubbing Michael Buble’s cover of the 1965 hit song “Feelin’ Good.” After you watch the video (and please, please watch it), you can read the story about hos the video came to be at mlive.com.



Have you run across any uplifting or just plain FUN videos lately?

Forever In My Heart, Never In My Arms

Today, October 15th, is National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day. Today, I remember 8 little beings I never got to meet...8 babies my husband and I created in love...8 babies who never drew a breath.

• 9/9/94 pregnancy ended at about 8 weeks, D&C
• 12/8/99 miscarriage confirmed at about 5 weeks. They called it a chemical pregnancy but I fucking hate that term.
• 11/11/02 loss confirmed at 10+ weeks, D&C
• 2/12/03 loss between 5 and 6 weeks
• 4/15/03 loss confirmed at about 11 weeks, D&C
• 11/24/03 loss between 5 and 6 weeks
• 6/17/04 had been on progesterone suppositories, saw heartbeat and fetal pole at 6 weeks; our little girl, Eva, dies at 8 weeks; found out at 9 weeks; D&C one day later
• 1/13/05 loss at about 5 week

Many of my friends have lost babies too. If you have a baby you would like remembered, Aunt Becky and Band Back Together are hosting Walls of Remembrance. Click on either or both of those links and have your babies added. Even if you haven't lost a baby, please join us in remembering these little ones who never got a chance to really live...

As Aunt Becky said so eloquently,

Dona nobis pacem.
(give us peace) Lord, give us peace.

Friday Night Leftovers: the truly random edition

Welcome to Friday Night Leftovers hosted by the fabulous Danifred of Sippy Cups Are Not For Starbucks...

• I am seriously jonesing for the new Kitchenaid 10th Anniversary Cook For The Cure Raspberry Ice Stand Mixer. 
• I would have no room for it (even if I currently had the money for it) and would have to get on the laundry room renovation I have planned stat. 
• That renovation ain't happening anytime soon. 
• I spent 4 hours volunteering in Gabe's classroom 2 days ago. Budget cuts mean our little school lost all their kindergarten aids. This means Gabe's teacher has 20 kids including 2 partially mainstreamed special ed kids and one child who speaks NO English. Teaching 5 yr olds is like herding cats. You can NOT teach that many 5 yr olds without help. Going in once a week is the least I can do. 
• I think my dog Jolie has SADD or Selective Attention Deficit Disorder. It's also known as the I'm old and don't give a shit disorder.
• I forgot to say that Marty is kicking serious azz in ROTC. He got his first two ribbons, his first promotion, was asked to join the drill team, and got a 100% on his inspection when Area Manager came to do his annual unit inspection. 
• Marty is on his way to Sugar Mountain, NC and Camp LutherRock with his church youth group. They are going hiking, doing a ropes course, and having camp fires. I hope he has a wonderful time.
• Rys and I were totally freaking out Marty last night when we were singing songs from The Rocky Horror Picture Show and doing the Time Warp.
• I'm making denim tote bags out of old jeans. I went to Goodwill and bought jeans with the most embroidery and bling I could find. The bags are turning out sooooooo cute.
• The fabulous Jenn over at Mamahood.org is giving away a $50 EdenFantasys gift card. Head on over and enter to win.

Head on over to Danifred's and check out the rest of the leftovers. Y'all have anything you want to share with us?

What The Fuck Wednesday: The Shoe Whore Edition

Y'all know I have a serious weakness for shoes. I love heels, boots, cute flats - anything cute, hot, or something that just speaks to me. I even occasionally will develop a yen for an unusual or unconventional shoe like the Vincente Rey heels at Boutique-Atelier. My dear friend Mrs. Gamgee from Hobbitt-ish Thoughts and Ramblings knows of my weakness and sent me an email featuring the shoes of Kobi Levi, an Israeli shoe designer. Levi's shoes definitely fit the unconventional category. Most of the shoes in the email just made me shake my head, a few were pretty cool, and one, well, one made me say " What The Fuck". It was his pump titled Blow...

If you look closely at the shoes, you can see the top of the heel is a woman's ass and the heel itself is made of her legs. Of course, given the name of the shoe, she is on her knees and the red around the toe represents her open mouth.

When I headed over to Levi's web site, I found one other shoe that evoked the same "What The Fuck" response. These are his XXX Pumps...

The top of the heel is the woman and the stacked heel, well, it represents a stacked man. A true what the FUCK moment.

If you've found a what the fuck Wednesday worthy moment, throw up a post and put the link in the comments. I'll add the links to the post through Sunday evening. If you don't want to post, share your What The Fuck moment here.

Happy Blogoversary To Me

Holy shit y'all...in only about 14 minutes or so (on the 11th), I will have been blogging for 7 years. 7 YEARS. Wow. Looking back at where I was then and where I am today just blows my mind. Back then, we were in the throes of repeat pregnancy loss and I was wondering if I'd ever have my third child. Now, that little miracle is in kindergarten and shows no fear in tackling anything the world throws at him. I was so lucky and blessed to find a solution to my infertility issues and I've been so blessed to have all of you go on this journey with me.

I wish I had a more profound or moving post to celebrate this 7th blogoversary but, honestly, I've been too busy and too tired to come up with something deeper and more meaningful. Let me tell y'all something...trying to manage a group of 5 year olds at a pumpkin patch is like herding cats. It's a hella bunch of work, you don't get very far, and you end up exhausted...hence, no deep and meaningful post. Instead, I'd like you to comment here and tell me something about you and me...maybe how you found my blog, why you keep coming back, stories you've heard about me, something you've always wondered about me. It would mean the world to me.


in a very off key voice
Happy Blogoversary 2 Me
Happy Blogoversary 2 Me
Happy 7 yrs 2 Me
Happy Blogoversary 2 Me

Guarding The Healer

If you are a fan of Stephen King or Dean Koontz, you MUST pick up a copy of Guarding The Healer.  Guarding The Healer is the phenomenal Indie published freshman novel of Gabriel Beyers, an up and coming author.

Guarding The Healer is a classic tale of good vs. evil that spans the suspense and horror genre. Guarding The Healer tells the story of Silas Walker, a young man who develops healing powers, and the angels and demons that always seem to be around him. Healer grabs you from the first chapter and, despite knowing the basics of the story from book description, there are twists and turns and surprises throughout the book.

Despite writing a book containing many supernatural occurrences, Mr. Beyers manages to populate his novel with characters that are very realistic and who are quite easy to identify with. When you sit down to read, you'll find yourself saying "Just a few more pages" again and again because you feel a genuine need to find out what happens to Silas and his friends. Mr. Beyers manages to tell a truly engaging and wonderful story with a surprising and completely satisfying ending.I can't wait to read the next book Gabriel Beyers publishes.


 PS...Hurry over to Amazon, Barnes & Noble or Smashwords and pick up a digital copy of Guarding The Healer for only 99cents. This price is only good through Halloween.

*I received a free copy of the book to review. All opinions expressed are completely my own.

The Icecapades: Video Game Version

Hey everyone! Due to an unfortunate chain of events, I'm hijacking the Lair today. We've had a nasty stomach bug swarm the house, with a second victim (Joey) down for the count today. Yesterday was Gabe's turn. For Kristin, this has meant a lot of night duty and midnight laundry (you know, the unexpected kind...) and has taken a toll on her. Since today is a half day at school, she's been banished to catch some Zzz's before the rambunctious 4 + Marty return home early this afternoon.

And so...On With The Show!

The musical Rock of Ages is running at a local venue.  It's a tribute type play to the metal-era of the 80s.  As a child/teen from this time, I'm not sure how I feel about this.  Most of me just wants to laugh.  Then again, I was also a child from the 70s whose parents owned every ABBA album ever made, and even though I found Mamma Mia to be ridiculous at its release, the creative team really pulled it off amazingly well. 

But anyway, it got me thinking.  What area of entertainment had yet to be exploited as some type of stage show?  Then it hit me:  Video Games on Ice.  Kids from a fairly wide age range would clamor to see it, brought by their nostalgic parents who remember begging their parents for an Atari system.  We controlled little 'paddles' to keep the digital 'ball' in play:  when it was vertical it was called 'Tennis', but horizontally it was PONG.

But anyway, the more I though about it seemed to work.  It has all of the elements of success:

Built in story with rivalry?  Check!  Flamboyant costumes?  Check!  Fantasy like scenery?  Check!  Action?  Check!  Iconic music?  Check!  Kid friendly?  Check!  Because let's face it, you can't get bloody on the ice unless it's a hockey game.  And it works with a large array of games to choose from...giving it many runs!  That's YEARS of entertainment!  It's like Disney on Ice...featuring each film at least once, or a bunch and all the princesses come out at the end for a royal medley.  Except in this version, it might look like Super Smash Brothers Brawl.

What video game would you like to see featured first?

Spooktacular Fun

The weather this past week has made me so happy. I LOVE Fall...the cool crisp weather, the nights starting to come earlier, pumpkins, deep rich jewel tones. I also love Fall because it signals the coming of the holidays. One of these days I'll have the time and energy to decorate for all the holidays the way I want to...even for Halloween. I have grand plans of setting up a grave yard complete with the SkyMall zombie and this super cool motion sensing talking figure of Death. Of course, at the rate I'm going, I will be able to play the role of an old decrepit graveyard resident by the time I get around to this.

The funny thing is that this obsession with Halloween has been around since I was in elementary school. My sisters, friends, and I use to set up our very own haunted house in my bedroom. Even though the entire haunted house was in my room, we still managed to have multiple levels of haunted house. I had a lovely closet with a sliding door that doubled as an elevator between the floors of the haunted house. We just had to convince our friends to stay in the closet long enough to redress the haunted house set. My extremely patient parents put up with us hijacking kitchen goods to create the bowl of intestines and the container of eyeballs. I'm pretty sure I remember us raiding the bathroom supplies to create containers of slime (shampoo works great for that). We did this on more than one occasion and my parents always let us. It was cheesy, not very scary, and a hell of a lot of fun.

I'd love it if you shared a childhood holiday memory with me. What was your favorite holiday? How did you make it special? Was it as thoroughly ridiculous as what my sisters and I did for Halloween?

A Miracle Happened

Just the other day, a miracle happened. It was mid afternoon on a weekend, normally a loud and crazy time...especially with *5 kids in the house. But, on this afternoon, it was silent. All 5 kids were happy and SILENT. I know any of you with kids in your life are clamoring to know how we possibly achieved this miraculous state. Well, earlier that day, a box arrived at our house. It was a box from Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment containing the two brand new Goosebumps videos - Attack of the Mutant and Ghost Beach. These two videos had 5 kids between the ages of 5 and 10 completely quiet and enraptured for over

an hour. The Goosebumps videos were just spooky enough to give the kids a thrill but not so spooky that anyone had a nightmare. It was a win-win situation. The kids were happy and entertained. We had peace and quiet. All in all, I'd recommend these videos to anyone with children in the 5 to about 12 age range.




*Marty was at a friend's house.
**These videos were given to me in by Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment in exchange for reviewing  them. All opinions expressed are entirely mine.

I think I forgot to take time to breathe

I do. I really think I've forgotten to take time to breathe and to blog. I knew my life would get busier once I had a kid in high school and I knew having Rys and her family here would make life busier. I just didn't comprehend how busy life would get. My driving has more than doubled with Marty in high school. Not only do I have kids in two schools now but Marty has drill team (ROTC) practice and Shore Patrol (ROTC at football games) and other school events and OMG is it ever crazy.

Rys and I are kicking ass with the house purging/cleaning/organizing which also sadly takes time away from breathing and blogging. But, we've thrown away 5 large garbage bags and have donated 7 large garbage bags worth of stuff. I promise that, although my house was cluttered, it wasn't gross. I am just floored at how many broken toys there have been and ho much little crap the kids had crammed into corners.

On top of all that, Rys, my husband, and I have all been fighting off the cold from hell. We are all still sniffling and congested. You know it's bad when two grown women do a happy dance because they walked into the drug store and found all the cold meds on sale for buy one, get one free.

And, omg, the kids are growing. Gabe has his first loose tooth and is eating non-stop. I think he's going to grow a foot over night. Marty looks so grown up in his uniform. And, Joey is on the Science Olympiad team at school.

Life is crazy and exhausting and wonderful. Hopefully, I'll be back regularly soon.

The Many Styles of Victor Cruz

The other night, I was in the bathroom giving Gabe a bath and Vic came into the bedroom to change his shirt. Right after he pulled the old shirt off I looked out and cracked up. T-shirt removal did a serious job on Vic's hair. See, my husband has decided that he needs to grow his hair out. I think he's having flashbacks to the 70s and earlier.

I call this the Nick Nolte mug shot look.

I was so amused by the first hair disaster that I broke out the brush and started playing with Vic's hair. I must say he was an extremely good sport and I was very amused by it all. Here are the many styles of Victor Cruz (with his permission)...

This is the Flock of Seagulls look.

The Sumo top knot

Sumo top knot side view.

But, then I decided the Sumo top knot was missing something. Hmmmm, what could it need? I think it needs chop sticks.

I'm still trying to convince him to wear the chopsticks to work. So, which hairstyle do you think is best for laughs?